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Parsifal's Traum: Chefsache »K.U.N.S.T.« Jonathan Meese

Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien

12.05.2017 - 18.06.2017

»MONDPARSIFAL ALPHA 1-8 (ERZMUTTERZ DER ABWEHRZ)« is the title that Jonathan Meese gave to his outer-space production of an opera by Bernhard Lang, which will premiere at the 2017 Wiener Festwochen festival. As the title suggests, this is a reinterpretation of the subject matter of Richard Wagner’s last opera »Parsifal« (1882).

Meese is a painter, sculptor, and action artist. His art overall appears like a commentary: sharp, at times (r)evolutionary, provocative, loud and chaotic, sometimes also affable. It reflects our present time with its erosion of traditional values in politics, religion and society. Meese’s (bossy) response to this is: K.U.N.S.T. (A.R.T.).

In the Picture Gallery, he now lands a new group of works, flying in like a spaceship. Four places south of the Alps that were home to schools of painters become associative theatrical venues, in which Meese, like in »MONDPARSIFAL,« explores the significance of art for the future, interrogating the Old Masters. At the same time, he responds to them with his own pictures and a Janusface, »CHEF DER KUNST« (the boss of art). The sculpture provides a focusing point for Parsifal, Meese, Wagner, and viewers alike. MEESE SHOWS IT WITHOUT GUILE.

An exhibition project of Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna in cooperation with Wiener Festwochen and Galerie Krinzinger Vienna.